I have been continuing my reading on the theme of Network Neutrality and came across the Washington, DC based Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Policy Studies. A long name for a consultancy – but they probably needed the extra words in order to distinguish themselves from a concert hall in Arizona – I’ll call them Phoenix for short.

Phoenix released an interesting report on Network Neutrality with a somewhat counter-intuitive conclusion that merits repeating here.

The arguments put forward by Phoenix are thoughtful and may be beyond the reach of many of the purveyors of hyperbolic rhetoric involved in this debate. But there appears to be some sound reasoning.

I have written before that I find much of the dialog from some of the participants to sound more like Marxist manifestos – “the internet belongs to the people” and “broadband monopolists”. Phoenix argues that forcing internet access providers to provide commoditized, vanilla service will serve as a disincentive to further market entry. And the net effect [excuse the pun] would be to exacerbate the limited availability of choice for consumers and content providers alike.

One of the highlights of each year’s Canadian Telecom Summit has been what we call “The Regulatory Blockbuster.” This year, that session takes place on Tuesday, June 13 and will feature the regulatory chiefs from Bell, TELUS, Rogers, Shaw and MTS Allstream.

People go to hockey games, saying they want to see lots of end-to-end action, but we know they really are hoping for a good fight. At our event, folks want to see the scratching, hair-pulling, body-slams and tag-team action as Janet and the boys duke it out together. In a civilized setting, of course.

Some of the participants are in rehearsal already. In case you missed the FP Comment section on Saturday, you should have a look at Ken Engelhart’s article followed by Mirko Bibic’s reply.

I consider their exchange in the paper to be an exhibition game to prepare for the main event. Since it represented a warm-up round, the Post gave Mirko an advantage by showing him Ken’s piece in advance. There will be none of that in June.

It will be an all ad-lib affair at The Canadian Telecom Summit. With the Telecom Policy Review panel report, the Local Forbearance Decision and an upcoming Cabinet ruling on the VoIP appeal, there are lots of hot issues to be explored.

Don’t miss the action!

In a Decision issued yesterday, the CRTC has bestowed a $10M windfall to MTS Allstream – acknowledging that mistakes sometimes happen. This tale appears to have more twists in it than Lucky Number Slevin, but we’ll rely more on Shakespearean references.

The issue at hand was an error that MTS Allstream made more than 4 years ago when it incorrectly failed to classify some communities into appropriate regulatory bands. Allstream has undergone numerous organizational changes through the years and it had lost some of the regulatory economic depth that it used to have. As it acknowledged, MTS Allstream simply made a mistake.

The CRTC had ruled in September that Allstream would not be entitled to a subsidy toward providing service to high cost areas for the period January 1, 2002 through most of 2003. That proceeding is itself a fascinating one to examine, in that the only party to have fought MTS Allstream was Allstream itself! (Recall that MTS and Allstream were separate, competing companies until 2 years ago).

CRTC Decisions generally have 3 avenues of appeal. You can: go back to the CRTC itself and try to argue that they made a mistake (in the application of law, in the basic facts or argue that the CRTC simply made a mistake); go to the Courts; or, appeal to the Federal Cabinet.

The Decision represents a rare, successful challenge back to the CRTC itself – a process known as an R&V;, since you are asking the CRTC to Review its earlier Decision and Vary the outcome. It is especially interesting because the September ruling was on another Review and Vary application. Today’s Decision represented the CRTC acknowledging that it made a mistake (officially called “substantial doubt as to the correctness of the Commission’s determination in Decision 2005-52“) in how to properly address MTS Allstream’s original mistake.

So it was a successful R&V; of a failed R&V.; Enthroned in the hearts of the CRTC, in applying its qualities of mercy, was a sort of recognition that mistakes happen – by both applicants and regulators alike – and the $10M punishment to MTS Allstream shareholders was disproportionate to the error.

Of final note: TELUS and Bell did not submit comments in this proceeding. Another twist that perhaps demonstrates mercy is mightiest in the mightiest.

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there: it’s good to see that all’s well that ends well.

If you have spent any time with me, you already know I am somewhat passionate about my coffee. We go to great lengths to serve above average coffee at The Canadian Telecom Summit. My brother says that my philosophy is that anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.

For that reason, I have been quite upset with the demise of my Starbucks espresso maker this morning. I would sit Shiva for it, but I have no coffee to serve at the shiva and so, what’s the point?

The point is that Starbucks has amazing warranty support – unheard of since the days of Eaton’s. It is a two year, unconditional guarantee. So, despite close to 2000 shots of coffee being brewed on this machine, it is going back this afternoon for a full refund.

This posting represents the second coffee oriented article in a blog dedicated to Telecom Trends. What is the relationship between coffee and moving bits, beyond the obvious cafeine as a major food group to all of us in the world of ICT? Both coffee and bits per second are commodities.

I think the telecom services industry can learn some lessons from successful coffee retailers. How do you differentiate yourself in a commodity business? How do you find your own profitable niche? How do you justify premium pricing when people can easily build their own?

I’m heading out for a coffee.

Interesting article in Red Herring that was brought to my attention by my colleague Brian Gordon.

The article cites U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales saying that:

Internet service providers aren’t doing enough to fight the child pornography traded and sold over their networks

The article says that he plans to introduce legislation to get US ISPs to crack down on such illegal content. We have been concerned about this for some time and have suggested that ISPs need to do more than simply support end-user education and blocking tools.

In our view, it isn’t enough for ISPs to wash their hands after simply chasing the content off Canadian servers. We are looking at this issue in greater depth in a special session on June 12, to be moderated by Hank Intven [from the Telecom Policy Review panel] at The Canadian Telecom Summit. You can read more about this session by searching some of my earlier postings.